Most managers dread giving feedback. Offering a blend of praise and criticism is supposed to help your team members do more of what they’re good at and improve in areas where they’ve missed the mark. But research shows it rarely works that way. In her book How to Change (Ebury Digital, 2021), Wharton professor Katy Milkman shares a different idea: Work to build people’s confidence if you want them to achieve a goal. In Virgil’s words from about 20 BCE, “They can because they think they can.”

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